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Course Description

 

 

Learning and problem solving in primates

 

 

Josep Call

MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany

 

Animals have to solve a variety of problems to survive and reproduce.  They have to find and process food, avoid predators and mate with their conspecifics.  Traditionally, psychologists have investigated problem solving and learning of technical problems (e.g., tool-using), but more recently, there has also been a strong focus on social problem solving (e.g., deception).  In this course we will discuss the various ways in which primates solve technical and social problems putting a special emphasis on the cognitive processes underlying the production of behavior aimed at solving novel problems.  Throughout the course we will establish links and comparisons with the literature on child learning and problem solving.

 

Lecture 1.  Historical overview, concepts and techniques

• introduction to this course
• two traditions in comparative psychology
• basic concepts
• techniques

Required reading:  Boakes, R.A. (1984).  From Darwin to Behaviourism.  Psychology and the minds of animals (Chapter 6  &  Chapter 7).  Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press.

 

Seminar 1.  Asking questions without words

• how to measure cognition
• hypothesis testing, alternative explanations, and control conditions
• how to compare species
• focusing on similarities and differences

 

Lecture 2.  Simple and complex forms of learning

• simple discrimination, reversal learning, and conditional discrimination
• relational learning, categories, and analogies
• learning to learn: learning set formation

Required reading:  Call & Tomasello (2005).  Reasoning and thinking in nonhuman primates.  In K.J. Holyoak & R.G. Morrison (eds.). Cambridge Handbook on Thinking and Reasoning (pp. 607-632). Cambridge University Press.

Optional reading : Roberts, W.A. (1998) Principles of animal cognition (Chapter 5). Boston : McGraw-Hill.

Seminar 2.  Discussion of the controversy over mental time travel in animals

• episodic memory and future planning
• corvids and apes: a convergent solution to a temporal problem?

 

Lecture 3.  Inferences, causality, and tool-use

• association vs. inference
• causal knowledge and causal understanding
• tool-use and planning skills

Required reading  Premack, D. (1995).Cause/induced motion: Intention/spontaneous motion. In Changeux, J.P. & Chavaillon, J. (Eds.). Origins of the human brain (pp. 286-309). New York Oxford University Press.

Optional reading:  Premack, D. & Premack, A.J. (1994). Levels of causal understanding in chimpanzees and children. Cognition, 50, 347-362.

Seminar 3.  Tool-use in animals (video).

 

Lecture 4.  Social problem solving: knowing about others 

• two aspects of social problem solving
• Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?
• knowing about seeing
• knowing about goals
• deception

Required reading:  Call, J. (2005).  Chimpanzees are sensitive to some of the psychological states of others.  Interaction Studies, 6, 413-427.

Optional reading:  Dally, J.M, Emery, N.J. & Clayton, N.S. (2005). Cache protection strategies by western scrub-jays, Aphelocoma californica: Implications for social cognition. Animal Behaviour, 70, 1251-1263.

 

Seminar 4.  Discussion of the controversy over theory of mind in nonhuman animals

• Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?
• Are all mental states equally opaque?
• What would be required to prove it?

 

Lecture 5.  Social problem solving: manipulating and communicating with others 

• intentional behavior and intentional communication
• gestural communication in primates
• pointing and sign language in apes
• cooperation and social learning

Required reading:  Gуmez, J.C et al., (1993).  The comparative study of early communication and theories of mind: ontogeny, phylogeny, and pathology. In S. Baron-Cohen, H. Tager-Flusberg y  (Eds.). Understanding other minds. Perspectives from autism. (pp. 397-426). New York: Oxford University Press.

Required reading:  Pika, S. Liebal, K., Call, J. & Tomasello, M. (2005).  The gestural communication of apes. Gesture, 5, 39-54.

 

Seminar 5.  Discussion (perhaps combined with Malinda Carpenter)

 

Assessment

 

Students who take the course for credit will be asked to write a 5-page paper that critically reviews one or more of the articles read in class, or to comment on other work that is related to the issues discussed in the class.

 

Josep Call, Ph.D.

 

Josep Call (PhD. in Comparative Psychology, 1997, Emory University) is a senior scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and co-director of the Wolfgang Kцhler Primate Research Center in Leipzig (Germany).  His research interests focus on comparative cognition and behavior in primates and other animals.  He has published numerous research articles and co-authored a book on primate cognition (see http://email.eva.mpg.de/~call/ for publications).